This joyful documentary speaks volumes
about the Archive. With Ruth and Marvin Sackner, Tom Phillips, Johanna
Drucker, and Albert DuPont.

The Sackner Archive of Concrete and
Visual Poetry

Ninth Revision October 2011

Introduction

Ruth and Marvin Sackner founded
the Archive in Miami
Beach, Florida
in 1979, later moving it to Miami, Florida in 2005. Its initial
mission was to establish a collection of books, critical texts, periodicals,
ephemera, prints, drawings, collages, paintings, sculptures, objects,
manuscripts, and correspondence dealing with precedent and contemporary,
internationally produced, concrete and visual poetry. The antecedent material
had at its starting point, StephaneMallarme’s poem, “Un Coup de Des”
(Cosmopolis, 1897). The historic examples included works with concrete/visual
poetic sensibilities from such twentieth century art movements as Italian
Futurism, Russian and Eastern European Avant Garde, Dada, Surrealism, Bauhaus,
De Stijl, Ultra, Tabu-Dada, Lettrisme, and Ultra-Lettrisme.

The initiators of the
contemporary, international, concrete poetic movement included ÖyvindFahlstrom (1953), Eugen Gomringer (1953) and the Noigandres Group, i.e., Augusto
De Campos, Haroldo De Campos, and Decio Pignatari (1955). The Sackners
collected their works as well as those of subsequent poets and over the years
expanded the scope of the Archive to include unique or small edition artist
books that integrated text and image or consisted of experimental typography.
They added examples of typewriter art and poetry, experimental calligraphy,
correspondence art, stamp art, sound poetry, performance poetry, micrography,
assembling periodicals, ‘zines,’ graphic design, and artist magazines as well
as conventional poetry and prose written by concrete/visual poets and artists
in the collection. Further, they collected experimental typographic, text and
image works from such contemporary art movements as Fluxus, Transfuturism, and
Inism. They included experimental fictional and non-fictional books with
uniquely designed layouts such as Raymond Federman’s “Double or Nothing,”
Alasdair Gray’s “1982 Janine,” B.E. Johnson’s “House Mother Normal: A Geriatric
Comedy,” Avital Ronell's "The Telephone Book," and Mark Z.
Danielewski’s “House of Leaves.” Pre-twentieth century examples of pattern
poetry were added to the Archive such as RabanusMaurus’ “Liber de Laudibus Sanctae Crucis” (1503)
and PubliliOptatianiPorfyrii’s “PanegyricusDictusConstantinoAugusto”
(1595). The Sackners collected manuscripts, sketchbooks and letters written by
poets and artists. In 2008, LindaBandtDepew donated a
large collection of books, manuscripts, drawings, prints and photographs made
by her deceased husband, WallyDepew. The Archive has evolved
into a word/image poetic and artistic resource rather than a restricted
collection of concrete and visual poetry. In March 2005, the Sackner Archive
moved from their house in Miami Beach to a two
story apartment in Miami.
The floor space of this new dwelling is comparable to the house but the layouts
are very different. In the house, books were displayed in two large libraries. But with limited space to show books and
much greater wall space in the apartment, artworks now dominate the display.

We have retained copies of the correspondence
to and from dealers, curators, artists, poets and critics since the collection
was formed. None of this correspondence has yet been catalogued. Yes! The
Sackners do all the cataloging of their collection. We chose to call our
collection an ‘Archive’ because an Archive includes correspondence, documentation
and ephemeral material as well as core items of the collection. With the growth of the collection, the Sackner Archive took
on features of an Archive of Archives. This direction might have subconsciously
originated from our attendance at the blockbuster exhibitions held at Centre
Georges Pompidou in Paris: PARIS-NEW
YORK (1977),
PARIS-BERLIN 1900-1933 (1978), PARIS-MOSCOU, 1900-1930 (1979), and PARIS-PARIS
1937-1957 (1981). The wealth of background (archival) material was an
eye-opener to us. It brought life to these inanimate works and put them into
matters of the moment that often uncovered unforeseen links to others. We have enjoyed
cultivating personal contacts with artists and poets or their relatives and
friends whose works constitute an Archive beginning with the multi-dimensional
artist, Tom Phillips, in 1975 and still ongoing today. Such documentation may
be found in our catalogue (1986) published in an edition of 500 copies that
unfortunately is long out of print and the movie ‘Concrete!’(2003) made by our
daughter, Sara Sackner, that is
available on DVD and on streaming video (http://www.ubu.com/film/sackner_concrete.html).

Selected
Categories of Works in the Archives of the Archive

Content

The section below describes selected Archives that are
grouped according to their major relationships to the Sackner Archive. They include
books, original art or poetry work and correspondence either to the Sackners or
other artists and poets as well as ephemera. One can locate records within the
database on all of them but there is some material mentioned below that has not
yet been catalogued.

Concrete Poets

Eugen Gomringer (Swiss) Augusto de Campos (Brazilian), Haraldo
de Campos (Brazilian), DecioPignatari
(Brazilian), ÖyvindFahlstrom
(Swedish). We have been fortunate to meet all these founders of the
contemporary concrete poetry movement, e.g., Eugen Gomringer (1925-) –
in Germany, Augusto de Campos (1931-) – in Sao Paolo and Miami, Haraldo
de Campos (1929-2003) – in New Haven, Decio Pignatari (1927-) – in Sao
Paolo and Miami but not ÖyvindFahlstrom (1928-1976) who died prior to our forming our
Archive. However, we have established a continuing relationship with his widow,
Sharon Avery-Fahlstrom, who curates his Archive at MACBA in Barcelona.

We have a continuing correspondence with Augusto de
Campos since 1980 with the most recent exchange of letters in 2010. Augusto’s
Archive consists of a fairly complete collection of trade edition books (27) that includes his
first rare pre-concrete poetry book, “O Rei Menos o Reino”(1951), three typed
letters to Dom Sylvester Houedard (1963-1964) as well as a manuscript of
concrete poetry entitled ‘Tensao; (1963) that was intended for Gomringer’s periodical,
‘konkrete poesie poesia concreta’ but not published because the magazine ceased
publication after the eleventh issue in 1964. Augusto’s Archive includes five
portfolios of silkscreen and pop-up prints, seven offset prints, one Plexiglas
poem object, two holographic sculptures and a great deal of ephemeralmaterial from newspaper articles and
exhibition announcements. Finally, we hold a complete run of Noigandres
(No.1 - No.5), a rare concrete poetry periodical that he edited from 1952 to
1962.

Visual Poetic Artist Books

Tom Phillips (British). ‘A Humument,’ by Tom
Phillips’ (1937-) is his visual poetic intervention that consists of drawn,
painted, collaged and typed images superimposed upon the pages of W. H. Mallock’s
Victorian novel ‘A Human Document’ (1892). It epitomizes the very best and most
beautiful of visual poetic artist books of the 20th and 21st
century. We saw the original pages for the first time in 1974 displayed at a
retrospective exhibition of Phillips’ work held in Kunsthalle Basel. We lingered
at that exhibition for hours and returned the next day to see it again because
we were so taken by it. We longed to purchase ‘A Humument’ but doubted that we
could ever afford it since at this exhibition the prices of the works were
available for review. But in 1984, armed with money from patent royalties for my
invention of a medical device, we realized our dream. We entered into an arrangement
with Tom to purchase not only his original altered copy of the book (1967-1973)
that consisted of 367 pages of drawings but all drawings and prints for subsequent
versions that he would produce. Our first purchase that would form ‘A Humument’
Archive was a suite of silkscreen prints in ten volumes (1970-1976) printed in
100 copies by Tetrad Press. We acquired the first trade edition of ‘A Humument’
(1980) that was printed by Edition Hansjorg Mayer and some pages of ‘A Humument’ drawings in
addition to the 367 drawings in his original version. We also hold the 75 original
drawings for ‘Trailer’ (1969-1971), a book done in a similar style as ‘A
Humument’ that was published as a trade edition in 1971 by Edition Hansjorg
Mayer. ‘Trailer’ was made from the reminders of a second copy of "A Human
Document" that Phillips had purchased to make ‘Heart Of
A Humument.’ The latter resulted in 132 new drawings from fragments of
the original pages of the book. This book was released as a trade edition with
offset printed pages in 1985 probably in about 2000 copies. We hold two copies
of its limited edition of 50 copies (1984) with drawings from ‘A Humument’
incorporated into the front and back covers of the binding made by Pella
Erskine-Tulloch. We have maintained our friendship with Tom since our first
meeting in 1975 to the present through correspondence and have met each other
in London, New York,
Saint Louis, Princeton, and Miami on several occasions.

Handwritten Artist Books

Jack Hirschman (American), Sloy (American), Judith
Copithorne (Canadian), Luciano Caruso (Italian), Timothy Ely (American) These
poets utilize unusual or exquisite handwriting along with drawings to present word-image
content. Jack Hirschman (1933- ) is a poet, artist, book artist,
linguist, translator and currently and for many years a poetic political
activist for far left theoretical ideology. But in the 1960s and 1970s, he wrote
long poems with a distinctive beautiful penmanship and ornamented them with painted
Hebrew letters in the Kaballistic tradition. He lives in the NorthBeach
section of San Francisco but travels extensively
throughout Europe where he is often invited for
poetry readings. He is among the most powerful and passionate readers of poetry
we have ever heard. We first became aware of his work while browsing for books at
Sand Dollar bookshop in Albany, California in 1979. We purchased
57 books, cards and broadsides by Hirschman from the shop, the first collection
of an individual poet’s work to enter our Archive. We began corresponding with
Jack in July 1979 and maintained it through 1998 approximately every three
months. During that period, we entered into an arrangement with him to acquire
manuscripts of his published and unpublished books, drawings (watercolor,
acrylic paint, and pastels), and unique artist books. The manuscripts written in
the Kaballistic tradition that have been very appealing to us include 1) ‘Aur Sea’ (1965-1969), London & Los Angeles,
39 large handwritten drawings with painted and collaged additions with a text that differs from the
book with the same title (1974) but without the painted and collaged interventions, 2) ‘William Blake’
(1967), Los Angeles, 11 handwritten pages, and 3) ‘Jerusalem’ (1969-1974) London & Los Angeles, 78 large
drawings with painted additions done in the style of ‘Aur Sea.’ We hold the manuscript of ‘Interchange for John Cage’
(1964), Los Angeles, 40 pages of handwriting and typewriting presented in the style of Mallarme’s ‘Un Coup de Des.’
Finally, we hold the manuscript and artwork for Jack Hirschman & Agneta Falk’s ‘A Fling of Two Die Never Will Abolish
Chance’ (1997), San Francisco, based upon Hirschman’s translation of Mallarme’s Poem, ‘Un Coup de Des.’

Jack Hirschman’s oeuvre is one of the largest Archives
within our Archive. Jack has annotated more than 300 of his artist books (each containing
up to 75 drawings) and book objects in our Archive through correspondence with
us. These books have calligraphic texts in English and other languages
integrated with visual imagery. There are about 150 individual large format
drawings based upon the Kaballistic tradition (1974-1978), 35 individual large
format pastel drawings with political themes (1979-1980s), and 50 individual small
format pastel drawings (1979-1980s) in his Archive. Finally, Hirschman’s
Archive includes an Archive of correspondence with the poet, Bill Pearlman. We
have met Jack in San
Francisco, Miami,
Milan and Verona
and continue to remain in touch.

Sloy (1960-) first came to
our attention when we saw a page of her experimental calligraphic text that was
printed in Émigré magazine No.32, 1994. We contacted her by mail in 1995 and
made our first purchase of one of her artist books. The experimental container for this book was
made by her husband, Dave Nichols (‘Nic’), who fabricates containers for her books from industrial,
corrugated cardboard. Nic takes the cardboard from commercially printed boxes and then fashions
ingenious locking mechanisms. We
hold seven unique artist books and book objects replete with her calligraphic
ink and embroidered thread drawings and about 20 handwritten and/or embroidered
individual drawings. Our favorite Sloy book is “Iron Fist in Yr Yellow Chakra”
(1998) that consists of 103 cards in a handsome container made by her husband
Nic. The book consists of calligraphic drawings, one to a card that
repetitively presents the title phrase or a minor modification in extremely
varied letter styles, sizes, and line densities using ink, paint, lipstick, and
graphite. I consider these cards a masterpiece of experimental calligraphy. We
spent a delightful day with Sloy and Dave at their house in Salem, Oregon
in 2009 and there I learned the origin of her name. She told us that she signed
her given name (Sandra Loy) to her earlier paintings as “s. loy.” But onlookers
could not easily read the period after the ‘s’ of her last name and called her Sloy, a name
that stuck to her as a nom de plume.

Judith Copithorne (1940-)
has been composing concrete poetry in Vancouver, Canada since
1961. She has written several books that are held by us. Runes (1970) published
by Coach House Press depicts representative examples of her “concrete,”
handwritten & hand printed poems with varied fonts of the 1960s & 1970s.
The words are not arranged linearly but float in space amid abstract flourishes
in a distinctive Copithorne style. I am tempted to call them examples of visual
poetry because of the added visual flourishes, More
recently, she has eliminated the abstract flourishes and employed more formal
lettering. I initiated a correspondence with her in 1989 to purchase original
drawings. We have maintained this relationship and met during our visit to Vancouver in 2006. We
hold seven drawings as well as 16 books and booklets.

Luciano Caruso (1944-2003) was a visual poet whose artist
books integrated intricate handwritten words, often illegible but visual
appealing with constructivist, abstract or semi-realistic images. Many of these
books had pages that were stiffened with thick white paint. He staged many
artist book exhibitions in Italy,
edited a series of reprints of Italian Futurist publication and published and
edited limited editions of visual poetry drawings, prints, booklets, and
collages by himself and other poets. These publications included “Continuazione”
(6 issues, 1970-1973), “Pattern” (16 issues, 1975-1976), “Le Brache di
Gutenberg: Cronaca” (88 issues, 1979-1998). Our first purchase of his work was for
issues of “Pattern,” a visual poetry booklet periodical at a Swiss bookshop in
1980. In 1982, we purchased three unique artist books that featured Caruso’s
handwriting at a gallery in Rome.
One was particularly interesting because the pages were collaged with
visual-verbal strips of paper that were painted with an Iodine solution thereby
making it an olfactory experience since the smell of Iodine has lingered to the
present day! We met Luciano in 1984 at his home in Florence and several times thereafter and
continued to acquire his artist books. We also maintained a correspondence up
until the year he died. His Archive includes 32 of unique artist books
(1967-1989), two series of small drawings with collaged elements, “Ritratto
Degli Uomini Illustri” that consists 40 framed drawings that depict portrait
caricatures in visual poetic terms of a poet or friend of Caruso and “i
tarocchi / gli arcani maggori” that consists of 22 framed drawings that depict
visual poetic interpretations of Tarot cards and two framed handwritten texts
that annotate this work.

Timothy Ely (1949-) is one
of the few artists in our Archive who has successfully combined experimental
bookbinding with word-image content. He makes unique manuscript books that are
lavishly painted and drawn visual narratives such as imaginary landscapes that often
include maps, untranslatable hieroglyphics, and mathematical formulae, and deal
with topics such as natural sciences, mathematics, architecture, and sacred
geometry. He is influenced by comic books and the study of history, religion,
and sociological and psychological phenomena. The works often include soil,
sand, and other detritus from pertinent sites around the globe, metals,
pigments, textiles, inks, and resins. We hold nine of these masterpieces of
artist book design. We met him several times in New York
City in the 1980s and carried on a
correspondence when he lived there. However, when he moved to the Pacific
Northwest in the mid-1990s, we lost touch until 2010 when we lent several books
to his retrospective exhibition “Line of Sight” held at the Northwest Museum of
Arts and Culture, SpokaneWashington. In addition to his books, we hold
seven painted drawings done in the same style as the pages of the books but
mostly in larger dimensions.

Anthologies

Emmett Williams (American),
Jean-Francois Bory (French), Klaus-Peter Dencker (German). All three
poets have edited major anthologies of concrete and visual poetry. Emmett
Williams’ (1925-2007) book, “An Anthology of Concrete Poetry” (1967) was inspirational
for our understanding the world-wide, concrete poetry movement. Our reading of
his book led us to establish the Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry in
1979. We met Emmett and his wife, Ann Noel, in Cambridge,
Massachusetts in 1979 and a year later
purchased Williams’ Archive prior to their permanent move to Berlin. This Archive was the first one
acquired by us and consisted of books, periodicals, and drawings by others as
well as manuscripts by Emmett. We kept in touch over the years and last met in Berlin about three years
prior to his death in 2007.

Jean-Francois Bory (1939-)
is the author of “Once Again” (1968), an anthology of concrete and visual
poetry translated from the French to English by Lee Hildreth. We first met in 1979
in New York
City
and have corresponded sporadically ever since then. In addition to his many
books and edited periodicals, Bory’s Archive includes his correspondence with
David W Harris aka David UU, the Canadian concrete poet, and five manuscripts
of his visual poetic books, “Retour au Japon: calligrames et fragments de
journal intime” (1996) that is a diary of Bory's trip to Japan along with 25
concrete and visual poems about his experience there, “Abracadada” (1997), a
sketch book with chaotically arranged handwritten text that employs several
colored inks and calligraphic styles, “Caillots & Lignes Deliees” (1997), a
book that was apparently never editioned, “Berceau d'Apollinaire” (1997), a
book dealing with the calligrammes of Apollinaire, and “Du meme auteur” (2000).

Klaus-Peter Dencker (1941-) is
the author of two anthologies of concrete and visual poetry written in German,
e.g., “Text-Bilder: Visuelle Poesia International” (1972) and “Optische Poesie;
Von Den Prahistorischen Schriftzeichen Bis Zu den Digitalen Experimenten Der
Gegenwart” (2011) We first met Klaus-Peter in New Orleans in 1979 where I was
attending a medical conference and he was there to purchase an authentic banjo to
play in a Hamburg Dixieland Jazz band. At that time, we purchased our first
unique book, “Notebook” (1978) in which the pages consisted of letraset type and collaged images. In 2006, he published a
limited edition of a densely illustrated book documenting his visual poems
entitled Visuelle Poesie 1965-2005. Over the years, we have acquired several unique
or limited editioned books by Klaus-Peter and have met in Miami,
Saarbrucken and Hamburg.

Typewriter Poets

Dom Sylvester Houedard (British), Donato Cinicolo 3
(British), Henri Chopin (French), Willem Boshoff (South African), Carl Andre
(American), William Jay Smith (American), Karl Kempton (American), David UU aka
David Harris (Canadian), Shaunt Basmajian (Canadian), Leandro Katz (Argentine).
These poets have relied upon the “almost obsolete typewriter” to produce “mind-bending,”
concrete and visual poems, often with kinetic imagery. Their archives include
original typewriter poems, books, manuscripts, and correspondence to other
poets as well as the Sackners. All have produced outstanding bodies of work in
this field as well as other genres of concrete poetry but two stand out for their innovative technical virtuosity, Dom
Sylvester Houedard and Willem Boshoff. We met Dom Sylvester Houedard (1924-1992)
for the first and only time in 1980 when during a visit to John Furnival (1933-) and
his wife Astrid at their house in England. He was a monk who lived in
Prinknash Abbey, close to the Furnivals. He was a delightful witty man who gave
us an encyclopedic list of poets and artists that we should contact. He was a master
of concrete poems that were manipulated with a typewriter as well as a creator
of reversal drawings. His major work was accomplished in the 1960s and early
1970s. Later on, he was unable to continue typing owing to arthritis. We hold
approximately 400 typed poems as well as two archives of Houedard’s typed correspondence
to John J. Sharkey and Donato Cinicolo 3 (1969- ). Further, the Archive holds
eight of his plexiglas laminated poem objects, over 75
watercolor semi-realistic figurative drawings (1952-1968), and 30 typewritten
and/or handwritten manuscripts (1964-1971).

We met Willem Boshoff (1941-)
in 1996 at the NY City apartment of Tony Zwicker (1925-2000), an eminent dealer
and curator who specialized in artist books with whom we had a long
relationship since her first sale of an artist book was made to us in 1982. We
purchase a number of Boshoff’s works at that time and subsequently in Miami
Beach when he
visited us in 1997. The prize winner was a manuscript of 94 typed concrete
poems along with the published book of “Kykafrikaans” (1980), the only
typewritten, concrete poetry book in the Afrikaans language [1000 copies but now
out of print] published in South Africa. Boshoff achieves fascinating, optical
effects by weighting the density of typewritten letters in different portions
of the poem through overtyping and creating diagonals by placement of the same
letter in that direction. We rate “Kleinpen I” (1979-1980), a close second to “Kykafrikaans.”
Here, Boshoff reduced Andrew Murray's book, "Prayer Life" that
consisted of 364 printed pages to 6 pages of micrographic text. Boshoff wrote
this book when he was an imprisoned conscientious objector to military service
in South
Africa.
He did not wear magnifying glasses for writing it and spent 10 minutes each day
transcribing the book as a semi-religious experience to maintain his sanity
during his incarceration.

We have major collections of typewriter poems and unique or
limited books incorporating typewriter poetry forthese distinguished poets whom we have met,
corresponded, or spoke with on the telephone: Donato Cinicolo 3, Henri Chopin, Carl
Andre, William Jay Smith, David UU aka David Harris, Shaunt Basmajian (1950-1990),
Leandro Katz (1938-). In 1993, following a meeting with Clive Adams and
Cinicolo 3 in London, Adams
sold to us an archive of correspondence between Donato Cinicolo 3 (c.1951-) and Houedard.
This consisted of 43 typed letters from Cinicolo
3 to Houedard often with stylistically, concrete poetic overtones. In addition,
we acquired two unique books, “The Story So Far” (1970) with 100 typewritten
concrete poems and “Green Book: something about nothing much atall” (1970) with
10 typewritten concrete poems. For the most part, Donato typed these poems on Olympia and Smith Corona
manual machines.

We met Henri Chopin (1922-2008) in London in 1979 close to our founding of the
Sackner Archive at a train station during his changing of trains as he was
heading home and continued our relationship in person and correspondence up
until he died in 2008. We hold 31 individual typed concrete or visual poems by
Henri Chopin, two large typed concrete poetic scrolls (1987 & 1990), three unique
artist books with 34 typed poems (1982, 1983, & 1984) as well as numerous
prints and limited edition books. Further, we hold runs of his anthologies of concrete,
visual and sound poetry publications that he edited or published from 1958 to
1979 These include an almost complete set of Cinquieme Saison and complete sets
of Ou and Collection Ou along with their deluxe editions as well as four maquettes
of Collection Ou that contain the original material and documentation.

We met Carl Andre (1935-) with
Ana Mendieta, the artist who was his partner at the time, in Miami
in 1982 and later on in New York City. We also had
a brief correspondence with him. We hold a single unique typewriter
poem and another that is colored photocopied in a limited edition as well as
one of 36 copies of his seven loose leaf notebooks of photocopied concrete
poetry printed in 1969 beginning with the signed copy “A Theory of Poetry
(1960-1965).”

In 1984, we discovered that William Jay Smith (1918-), an American mainstream, poet, translator and writer had
published a book of shaped typewriter poems in 1954 entitled “Typewriter Birds”
near the beginning of the international concrete poetry movement. When we met
him in New York
City
shortly thereafter, he was surprised that we consider these poems as
historically significant as early examples of concrete and visual poems. We
acquired the typed and annotated manuscript versions of this book from Bill and
have continued to stay in touch with this remarkable man (93 years young and
still traveling here and abroad for poetry readings).

We first contacted David UU (1948-1994) by mail
through an introduction by jw curry and began to acquire examples of his
typewriter poetry and ephemera at that time. In 1988, we purchased the
manuscript of his collection of concrete typewriter poems, entitled “American
Cross” (1966) that was typed under his give name, David W.Harris We consider
these poems as among one of the strongest political statements made in this
genre. We corresponded and spoke on the telephone a few times but lost track of
him in 1992, two years before his untimely death.

Although we first collected Shaunt Basmajian’s (1950-1990)
books in 1979, we did not establish contact with him during his lifetime. Toward
the end of 1990, the year of his death, during a trip to Toronto, we arranged to meet his mother and
sister at their home and purchased 50 of his typewriter poems and nine
calligraphic concrete poetic drawings from them.

Clive Phillpot, the Head Librarian at MOMA in NYC in early 1987, first called
our attention to the work of Leandro Katz (1938-) who is an experimental filmmaker, photographer and language
artist. We visited him in his studio later that year where we purchased our
first typewriter piece that consisted of a colored photograph of an opened book
with facing pages in a made-up language mounted on stiff papercard with a colored
typewritten caption of language art in a large font size below. Two years
later, we added two of his unique artist books, one of which was “Beatrice's
Notebook Mirror on the Moon” (1983) with 50 pages in a unique calligraphic
alphabet as a code, the otherwas typed
with a Royal typewriter that utilized large fonts, “The Black Book - Mirror on
the Moon” (1985) with 72 typed pages and added visual images. These books were
intended as performance copies for Katz's film "Mirror On
The Moon," a story about a character who makes books in code. In
1991, we purchased “Word Column IV: Puno/Altamira; Word Column XII: Section I
(1971). This consisted of two scrolls, one of which at a time was placed such
that it emerged from the typewriter that made them. A larger length scroll
consisted of Spanish words selected at random by automatic typing arranged as
an irregular margin single word column, the smaller
scroll consisted of English words chosen the same way. Leandro visited us in
2010 during the week of Art Basel Miami and we have continued to correspond
with him.

Compilers of Assemblings

Richard Kostelanetz (American), David Dellafiora
(British), Guillermo Deisler (Chilean), Gerhild Ebel & Cornelia Ahnert (German),
Harmut Andrycuk (German): These individuals have compiled, edited, or
curated runs of Assembling magazines or “one-ofs” that are among the most creative
of artists’ magazines. The Sackners hold complete or almost complete runs of
these Assemblings, most of which include international contributors. Richard
Kostelanetz (1940-) set the standard for this
genre in recent times by publishing the periodical, ‘Assembling,’ each issue
1,000 copies [1970-1981]. As Kostelanetz recalled on his internet site, he
invited artists & writers who were known to be doing otherwise
unpublishable work to send a thousand copies of up to four pages (8 1/2” x 11”)
of whatever they wanted to include, which were assembled in alphabetical order,
returning three bound copies to each contributor, ideally selling off the rest
to defray collation and administrative costs. As Kostelanetz stated, “we
abrogated editorial authority not because we were rudderless or lazy (though we
never agonized over whether something or someone would be “appropriate to our
pages”), but because we wanted a compositional structure radically different
from the restrictive, self-serving nature of traditional editorial processes.
We wanted a genuine participatory democracy that successfully redistributed
both initiative and responsibility. The only control left to us was the
invitation itself, so that just as unfamiliar would-be collaborators were asked
to show us examples of their work before receiving an
invitation, so a few previous contributors were not invited again.”
Although some Assemblings comply with this inclusion rule, others are now edited
and/or curated. We hold possibly the first version of an Assembling, “Feuillets
Inutiles.” This periodical was edited by Jacques Maret (1900-1980) in Paris from 1929-1980 in
33 numbers except for an interruption by WWII. It ceased to be
published after Maret’s death.

David Dellafiora (1963-) was
born in London but has lived in Australia
for almost two decades is the most active world-wide compiler of contemporary Assemblings.
His first publication was his yearly issued Field Study in 1995 that began in London in 100 copies with
contributors from the international mail art network and has continued to the
present day. The periodical, “Wipe” [each issue 40 copies] first appeared in
1999 and has reached 61 issues in 2011. The contributors submit their pieces on
toilet tissues that are painted, collaged, rubberstamped, handwritten,
photocopied or ink jet printed. The variety of toilet tissues that the
contributors have used throughout the world is astonishing and worth a look
even without the accompanying art or poetry. David started ReSite [each issue
40 copies], an assembling in 40 copies in 2005 with the submitted material on
unbound pages in 2005 that has reached 13 issues in 2010. He began KART [each
issue 40 copies], with a focus on art and poetry on cards in 2006 which has reached
27 issues as of June 2011. Finally, he has produces single books of Assemblings
such as “The Art of the Surreal” (1994) in 16 copies, “Eighty Days” (1997) in
eight copies, “Cross Reference: artists in librairies” (2000) in 100 copies, “The
Visualised Page” (2001) in 100 copies, and “We Multiply!”
(2002).

We carried out correspondence with the Chilean artist/poet Guillermo
Deisler (1940-1995) from 1985 while he was living in Bulgaria, then in East Germany up until the time of his death.
We purchased several of his unique and limited edition artist books from him.
His Assembling periodical, ‘Uni/vers(;)’ that was begun
in East Berlin in 1988 lasted through issue 35
in 1995 and was a marvel for the high consistency of the material that was assembled.

Although we first corresponded with Gerhild Ebel (1965-) and purchased artist books from her in 1996, we purchased
the first issue of her Assembling, “Miniature Obscure” (1992) at a later date.
The rules for11 mal
11 cm, das ist kleiner als das Booklet einer CD, kleiner als eine Postkarte,
gerade mal so groß, dass es bequem auf die Hand passt. contributions to
this Assembling was that the pieces had to measure 11 x 11 cm.Beinahe ein Kassiber¹. Some forty,
some well-known, others less known authors of visual poetry from the
German-speaking world and beyond, for every issue received a personal
invitation to contribute a "miniature obscure" which was then
packaged in an unusual elegant container
in an edition of 88 copies. This assembling was produced almost every year
though 11 issues and is a high
point
in Assembling lore. The editors who knew each other
since the late 1980s as students belonged to the circle around the Chilean
artist/poet, Guillermo Deisler, who was living in Berlin.

We have carried out a correspondence with Harmut
Andryczuk (1957-) since 1990 and met him in Berlin in 1992. He
produced the most sumptuous single issue of Assembling in our Archive –
literally a museum exhibition in a box, the third issue of “Unikatmaschine”
(1996). This unique bookwork with a theme of life and death was exhibited at Studio im Hochhaus in Berlin in 1996.
It is enclosed within a large purple, clamshell box, which
when opened is divided into two parts. One part contains a box labeled
"EXHI," the other section, a box labeled "BITION." The
"EXHI" labeled box contained prints and drawings from the 114
contributors with sizes about 31 x 21 cm. The "BITION" labeled box contains a hard cover
book that was the catalogue for the exhibition, artists' envelopes,
booklets, prints, photographs and a small acrylic painting.
The catalogue was a hard cover book that provided documentation and reproduced
some of the works in the exhibition. It also included original works as well.
This book was included in the "BITION" box along with documentation
and original works. It begins with a handwritten, introductory essay by
Andryczuk. This is followed by brief biographic sketches of the contributors.
The book reproduced the original contributions by Dencker, Gruner, Kulmenin and
Heruth on translucent paper, a suite of 37 visual poetic, ink drawings by
Pierre Garnier, an ink picture poem by Otto Zielke, a collaged print by Heinz
Bartkowiak, an ink drawing by Harmut Sorgel, and an ink and magic marker
drawing by Andryczuk.

Archive of Correspondence

Ian Hamilton Finlay (Scottish): Although we have an
extensive collection of his books, cards, and prints, the showpieces of his
work in our collection are two archives of correspondence, one between himself
and his collaborators from 1971-1977 that include a large number of preparatory
drawings and handwritten poems for 272 projects. The handwritten, signed
letters show Finlay as a stickler for details in his instructions to the
calligraphers and artisans with whom he collaborated. His letters often
consisted of several pages and his “Archive for Stuttgart Max Planck Project”
(1972-1978) took us 14 hours to annotate for the database. The other archive
consists of 19 letters from and to Finlay by U. Grant Roman, a publisher living
in Fort
Lauderdale, Florida in the 1960s as well as a mock-up of
a concrete poetry book Roman was given to publish that Finlay disavowed. We met
Ian (1925-2006) at his farmhouse near Edinburgh
in 1980 and again a few years prior to his death.

Artist, Poet, Mentor and Publisher

Although there are several individuals who fulfill the header
of this section, three stand out: d.a. levy (American),
Geof Huth (American) and jw curry (Canadian). Vittore Baroni [see Mail Art
sectionbelow], Bob Cobbing [see Performance Poetry section below] and Luciano
Caruso [see Handwritten Artist Books above] could have also fit into this
section but we decided it was more important to call attention to their other
achievements.

d.a. levy’s (1942-1968)
archive is one of the few large archives in our collection that does not
include personal correspondence between us because he died prior to initiation of our Archive.
levy’s Archive in our collection includes correspondence between
levy and Bill Wyatt, David W Harris (aka David UU), Jacob Leed, Bob Cobbing,
and Will Inman. Further, we have corresponded with Ingrid Swanberg, Karl
Kempton, and Karl Young who curated d.a. levy’s home
internet page http://www.thing.net/~grist/l&d/dalevy/dalevy.htm.
Both his conventional and concrete poems and critical writings provide one of
the most sensitive and accessible body of work to the general reader in our
collection. The web site and Ingrid Swanberg’s ‘Zen Concrete & etc’ (1991)
are a must for anyone wanting a good understanding of levy and his
work. We also were involved with Alan Horvath (1952-2010) who provided a great
service to readers of levy’s work by reprinting a number of levy’s works
through Kirpan Press because the edition sizes were small and long out of print.
We lent Horvath unpublished material by levy that he subsequently published and
made available to the public. We hold an extensive collection of levy’s books
that he published using “dirty letter press printing” and mimeographing. We
hold over 80 books or booklets written or edited by levy, as well as manuscripts of ‘Scarab’ (8 pages),
‘Zen Concrete’ (23 pages), and an unpublished concrete
poetry manuscript (13 pages) sent to David W Harris. We hold all the issues of series
of booklets he edited and/or published such as the Ohio City Series and
Polluted Lake Series. Our Archive holds 101 books published by levy’s Renegade
Press and 7 Flowers Press as well as all the issues of periodicals he edited
and/or published such as Buddhist 3rd Class Junkmail Oracle, The Silver
Cesspool, Poets at the Gate, and Marrahwanna Quarterly. Finally, we hold a painting
as well as several drawings, prints and collages made by levy. We hold over 130
issues of small press periodicals to which levy contributed one or more poems. d.a. levy influenced many poets during his brief lifespan
such that academics frequently group them as
d.a. levy and his circle or d.a. levy and the Cleveland poets.

Geof Huth (1960-) is among the
most prolific and thoughtful, contemporary concrete/visual poets, critics, experimental
calligraphers and wordsmiths. Along with a detailed, frequently posted blog
about poetic activities, he edits several exemplary, small press publications that
are distributed as mail art, sends his own uniquely styled calligraphic glyphs through
the mail to a limited audience as postcards, and performs/reads his own poems in
the U.S.
and abroad. All the while, he works full-time with a frenetic traveling
schedule as an archivist for New YorkState.
He first contacted us with a letter in 1987. Since then, we have maintained an
active correspondence and have met in Miami, ColumbusOhio, and New
Orleans. His archive consists
of over 25 books, booklets, and pamphlets of concrete and visual poetry as well
as large runs of publications he has edited and/or
published such as dbqp, qbdp, pdqb, Alabama Dogshoe Moustouche, The Subtle
Journal of Raw Coinage, A Voice Without Sides, Socks Dregs and Rocking Chairs,
Epistulational Exscrapts, QCKK, &, and Objecta amounting for a combined
total of over 750 issues. We hold 17 inked concrete poetic drawings by him
(1986-1993), most with small hand printed letters on a grid of graph paper. His
Archive dates back to age 18 years when he was editor of his high school
magazine, “The Gadfly” he donated to our Archive along with his college
magazines, Scriviner, Versus, Vanderbilt Poetry Review and Vanderbilt
Photograph Review in which he contributed poems, short stories and photographs.
We also hold over 150 issues of various small press magazines to which he
contributed poems. Finally, his work never becomes stale – it is always remains
innovative, fresh and a delight to read and see.

We have collected the works of jw curry (1959-) since 1979 but met John for the first time in 1984 in
his apartment during a visit to Toronto
where he was living at that time. We saw again in 1985 during an interview by
Steven Ross for an issue of Mundo Hankamooga, In 1990,
he invited me to deliver a talk on “Forming our Collection” at Birganart
Gallery in Toronto.
curry’s literary output includes concrete and
visual poetry as well as minimalist conventional poetry. His poems appear in
varied styles such as collage poems, hand-drawn poems, typewriter poems, silkscreen
poems but he eschews poems created using a computer. One of his most
productive, but little recognized, literary forms has been the personal letter.
In the early days of our relationship, he wrote several page letters in an
almost micrographic script that were artistically beautiful but devilishly
difficult to read.

curry began publishing
in 1979 under a wide variety of titles but most of his small press publication
(10 to 300 copies) fall into Curved H&Z (over 500 issues including trade,
ordinary and variant issues), 1cent series (325 issues), and th wrecking
ballzark (70 issues). These issues consist of leaflets, cards, pamphlets,
prints, books, and booklets featuring him and other Canadian poets. For most of
these publications, he prints the texts with small rubberstamp kits as he
hunches over a small table in his apartment. He also has used other printing
techniques to a lesser extent such as silkscreen,
photocopying, mimeography and photo-offset. The numerous cross-references among
these publications as well as others can prematurely age catalogers. His
Industrial Sabotage imprint is both a subset of Curvd H&Z and th wrecking ballzark and consists of 63 issues with all
manner of experimental poetry in wildly imaginative formats. His Spudburn
magazine consists of individual works handwritten by various poets and released
in 50 copies with each copy being essentially unique. We also hold 42 issues of
small press magazines where curry was a poetry contributor. Finally, we hold 30
collections of Archival material, i.e., manuscripts, drawing and collages for his publications.

As a bookseller,
curry has released 15 catalogues through his Room 3o2 imprint that lists his
publications and others. For the past several years, curry has focused on
producing a complete bibliography of the works of bp Nichol, the Canadian who
died a premature death as a result of a failed surgery.

curry has invented
an alter ego named Wharton Hood, a Canadian poet who lived near curry. Hood had
his own set of correspondents, used a completely different handwriting than
curry, and appeared in curry’s letters as a local character curry could not
quite control. This alter ego was the supposed editor of Utopic Furnace Press—a
press that published only found work—even though curry served as the publisher
of the venture. curry has produced a limited edition probably
in less than 10 copies of 12 volumes of Hood’s incoming and outgoing
correspondence, in which Hood often criticizes many other writers, including
some of his frequent correspondents. We hold these volumes in addition to
several other publications by Hood.

Micrography

Micrography was
originally a Hebrew form of calligraphy
first written in the 9th century, with parallels in Christianity and Islam. Minute
letters were written to form representational, geometric and abstract designs. There
was a relationship between this form of art, employing both digital and analog
symbols, and the restrictions on images from the biblical second commandment.
Micrography was used to provide a unique solution to the visual artist who
wished to remain devout in observation of Hebrew law, by using only text, not
images per se. Similar restrictions existed in certain
Muslim societies such that this solution has been adapted for Islamic
calligraphy and the Arabic alphabet as well. Now a days,
its meaning for the most part has no religious connotation and is written solely
for its esthetic effects. However, David Moss (1946-),
an American calligrapher living in Israelhas written a body of work utilizing
micrography that has a religious connotation. We hold his “The Moss Haggadah - Song
of David” (1990) and Ketubot [marriage contract in English]: Love Letters (2005).

The
Archives of Vicenzo
Accame (Italian), Enzo Miglietta (Italian) (1928-) mainly consist of their micrographic
visual poetry.We first corresponded with Vincenzo Accame (1932-1999), a
concrete and visual poet, anthologist as well as an art critic in 1980 and met
him in Milan in 1981. In 1983, we attended a blockbuster exhibition "Jarry
E La Patafisica" held at the Palazzo Reale in Milan that featured many
mainstream artists and poets from the early twentieth century and onward. Accame
was one of the co-curators of the this exhibition and his work celebrating
Jarry’s ‘Ubu Roi’ consisted of 15 micrographic drawings entitled ‘Vision del
Particolare’ (1982-1983) and was prominently displayed. We purchased this work
during the exhibition through Ugo Carrega who was then the Director of the
gallery, Mercato del Sale. We continued to collect his work through 1991 amounting
to an additional 16 small micrographic drawings and the largest micrographic
drawing on canvas in our collection measuring 116 x 213 cm or 46 x 84 inches.
Our last contact with Accame was by mail in 1992.

We hold a large
body of micrographic work by the visual poet and calligrapher Enzo Miglietta
(1928-) that includes over 70 small (approximately 35 x 50 cm or 14 x 18
inches) and large (70 x 100 cm or 28 x 39 inches) drawings written in inks of
varied colors from 1978-1999. These drawings depict geometric forms, stick figures,
labyrinths, abstract and constructivist forms, shaped poems, and narratives. One
of the gems of micrography in our collection is Enzo’s ‘Bianco/Nero’ (1988), a
book that consists of 47 unbound small (21 x 15 cm or 8 x 6 inches) micrographic
drawings with occasional added collage elements depicting a dizzying variety of
contrasting constructivistic and abstract images in black and white inks. We
also hold three of his artist books that contain a total of 75 micrographic
prints. We first became aware of Enzo’s work when we purchased a portfolio that
contained three of his drawings at the gallery Mercato del Sale in Milan in
1981. We began to correspond in 1981 but did not meet until 1990 at his home in
Novoli, a small town near Lecce, Italy. At that time, we decided to
systematically collect his work over the years from when he started his poetic
career and continued collecting annually until 2002. We consider Miglietta the
most under-rated visual poet in our collection who deserves an exhibition
outside of Italy so that a broader audience can view his outstanding work.

Rubberstamping

Wally Depew (American), Scott Helmes (American), and Joan
Iversen Goswell (American) are artist/poets who have taken different
creative approaches to rubberstamping. Several other artists and poets in our
collection use rubberstamping because in the latter part of the 20th
century it was a favored media for mail art poetry and neo-dada productions. In
addition to those mentioned above, we have large collections of others that
immediately come to mind who utilize rubberstamping such as Pawel Petasz (1951-)
(Polish), Paolo Bruscky (1949-) (Brazilian), Cozette de Charmoy (1939-)
(British), Picasso (Bill) Gaglione (1943-) (American), and John M. Bennett
(American) (1942-).

We began corresponding with Wally Depew (1938-2007)
in 1980 when we first came across his limited edition booklets at the Printed
Matter Bookshop in New York
City
and requested that he send us more of the same. In addition to his
rubberstamped body of work, Wally, who lived in Pennsylvania,
California, New
York
and Arizona
through his lifetime, participated in numerous artistic activities. He edited
and published Poetry Newsletter (1964-1966), an avant garde, small press poetry
periodical that ran through 12 issues, composed concrete typewriter poetry, contributed
poems to small press periodicals, was a book artist,
print maker and drama writer. We continued to correspond and purchased his book
works until 1993 when we lost mail contact with him. Unfortunately, we never
had the opportunity to meet. In late 2007, we received a telephone call from
his widow, Linda Bandt Depew, indicating that she wanted to donate Wally’s Archive
to ours. After much discussion as to whether his work should be donated to a public
institution rather than a private collection such as ours, she insisted that she
wanted to donate it solely to us. We received an Archive of material in 35 shipping
boxes that contained a number of books and booklets we had purchased previously
as well as several unknown to us, small press magazines that he had edited, rubberstamped
and wood block prints, photographs along with their negatives, unique artist
books, collages, correspondence and manuscripts by Wally and other poets
including Hannah Weiner (1928-1997) as well as a trove of books and small press
magazines in which he was a reviewer, critic or friend of the author.

His response to my question in 1991 about rubberstamping the
pages of his books was as follows: “If, for example, I carve wood or plastic
and print it from stamp pads, it could be called rubber stamping. But when I
use artist’s tube watercolors or acrylic paints, applied to the cuts with a
brush, what is that? And when I hand paint rubber stamps and then print them as
standard rubber stamps…?

Wally’s personal Archive is still being catalogued but so
far it amounts to multiple copies of 18 booklets in an edition of 10 copies, 37
booklets in 49 copies, 1 booklet in 50 copies and 4 booklets in greater than 100
copies, 12 books in 10 copies, 16 books in 49 copies, 1 book object in 50
copies and 16 books in 100 to 200 copies. It also includes five unique artist
books, 42 ink drawings, 360 rubberstamped drawings, 3 collages and over 50
rubberstamped or wood block prints. It contains multiple copies of ‘the black
box of poems’ (2003) a mini-retrospective of both Linda and Wally Depew’s work that
is dedicated to the conceptual artist, Sol LeWitt, in the form of numerous
leaflets and booklets that feature conventional poetry, concrete poetry, language
art, optical image, transmorfation, conceptual art, and asemic writing. When we
finish cataloging the entire Archive, we plan to mount an exhibition featuring
his works in a public venue so that his neglected visionary work will become accessible
to the art/poetry participating public.

Scott Helmes (1945-) is a
practicing architect who lives in Minnesota.
But we suspect the love of his creative life is his involvement in performance
poetry, and concrete and visual poetry. We began our correspondence in early
1980, continued to remain in touch since then and have met several times over
the years in Minneapolis, St. Paul, Miami, and ColumbusOhio.
In contrast to making rubber stamps like Wally Depew and Joan Everson Goswell,
Scott uses antique rubberstamps for his drawings. With regard to this practice
he contributed an essay for an exhibition catalogue ‘Multiplicity for Millions:
The Art and History of Rubber Stamps’ (2004), Minnesota Center for Book Arts.
In this essay, Helmes states, “In the Winter of 1974,
I was at an antique show at Apache Mall, Minneapolis.
While looking for interesting antiques, I noticed under a table a wooden box
and some rubber stamps. The box was non-descript and the stamps loosely
organized. As I had begun doing concrete/visual poetry in 1973, I was intrigued
by the possibility of using the stamps for the poetry. The stamps were three
dollars and the box two dollars. Shortly after that purchase, I bought a stamp
pad and proceeded to make a number of concrete poems using the stamps.” This
started Helmes on collecting antique rubberstamp sets such that by 2004, he
owned more than 650 sets with approximately 35,000 stamps. In addition to 15
rubberstamped drawings in the Helmes Archive, ‘Language Exposed’ (1991) an
artist book, has 40 rubberstamped drawings. We also hold several books that
include photocopied rubberstamped drawings such as the exhibition catalogue at
Stamp Art Gallery ‘Visual Rubber Stamp Poems’ (1993) with 28 pages of
reproduced rubberstamp drawings and ‘Poems 1972-1997, (1997), Stamp Pad Press
with 9 pages of reproduced rubberstamped drawings as well as stencil and
architectural projection concrete poems. Scott’s rubberstamped drawings depict
all styles of concrete poetry and give him the opportunity to create ‘dirty’
printing and smudged poems. Scott made the entrance sign to our collection from
mirror imaged antique wood type letters as follows:‘THE RUTH AND MARVIN SACKNER ARCHIVE OF
CONCRETE & VISUAL POETRY’ (1988)

Joan Iverson Goswell ((1938-) is a
calligrapher, rubberstamp artist and artist book maker who lives in Pennsylvania. She makes
her own rubber stamps by carving them from rubber erasers. We have carried on a
correspondence since 1995. Most of her work is political in nature and left-leaning.
We hold nine of her unique artist books with pages that are rubberstamped with
varied color inks and occasionally collaged with photocopied texts. Our
favorite book of hers is ‘The George Book’ (1992). This is an anti-George Bush
book written during his failed 1992 re-election Presidential campaign. The
varied colored inks and arrangement of texts and images lend an especially
appealing visual appearance. We consider this book the most outstanding artist
book composed with rubberstamping in our Archive. It is a very scathing
indictment of the American political system. Although her political persuasion
is toward the Democratic party, the criticisms are
also applicable in many instances to the Clinton
administration and her cutting comments are still relevant in today's (2011)
politics. These include among others, 1) If you can't dazzle them with
brilliance, baffle them with bullshit!, 2) I want you to join Team 100 where
you can give me $100,000 and I give you extra special favors along with secret
White House dinners!!!, and 3) I probably have made mistakes assessing the
economy - I was wrong - sorry. We question: Do politics ever change??? In
addition to the artist books made by Goswell, we hold four of her rubberstamped
drawings.

Mail Art and Artist’s Stamps

Vittore Baroni (Italian) and Edgardo-Antonio Vigo
(Argentine) have been intensely involved with the international correspondence or
mail art networks through individual contributions to publications by others or
editing and compiling contributions by others in their own periodicals. Mail
art can consist of any art/poetic expression in unique or multiple copies
provided it is sent through the mail. Rubberstamping, photocopying and collage
have been the most common media for expression. A mail art publication often is
initiated by an editor or compiler sending by mail a request with a theme for
contributions and a specified number of copies. With established mail art
publications, individuals send their contributions to an editor or compiler and
when a certain number is reached, the issue is made and sent to contributors and
selected collectors. Sometimes, the works are exhibited at a museum or public
space and a catalogue published. Except for lavish productions, mail art
publications are rarely sold to the general public and edition sizes are
typically small, e.g., 20 to 100 copies. With the high costs of mailing today,
mail art publications are diminishing and may become extinct. The internet is
becoming an alternative for communication among mail art workers. Artist stamps
are a subset of mail art in which the artistic communication can be viewed
directly on the mailing envelope. Occasionally, they are mistaken for valid
postal stamps but that is not their usual intent.

We first contacted Vittore Baroni (1956-)
with a letter in early 1980 and began to collect his visual poems, collages, books,
prints and edited publications. We have met in Florence, Italy twice and plan
to see him in Viareggio, Italy in 2011. We continue to correspond and collect
his work which is consistently of the highest quality and packed withinnovations For example, we hold 25 of his artist
books, 35 drawings, 215 collages, 83 photocopied or photocopied colored prints,
and 42 poem objects. Vittore has also written an outstanding reference text on
correspondence art, ‘Arte Postale’ (1997). In this book,he provides an in-depth discussion of mail
art with sections dealing with submovements, e.g., Assemblings, Fluxus, Xerox
art, Neo-Dada, etc. and sections dealing with major mail art workers, e.g., Ray Johnson,
Robin Crozier, etc. He also mentions the Sackner Archive as a resource for mail
art. Vittore has contributed work to over 200 issues of small press periodicals
not counting those which he has edited. Vittore has edited one of the most important
mail art magazines, Arte Postale! of which he
published 100 issues from 1979-2009. He also is an editor of BAU, a more lavish mail art magazine
than Arte Postale! which thus far has been published
in 9 issues from 2004-2011. Finally, Vittore has made over 80 photocopied,
color photocopied or ink jet printed artist stamp sheets. We consider Vittore
as one of the most important figures in the international mail art network as
well as an artist whose visual creativity is tempered by ‘thinking outside of
the box.’

Edgardo-Antonio
Vigo (1927-1997) was an
engraver, concrete and visual poet, conceptual artist, constructor of
"objects-without-use" and "odd-machines," mail and stamp
artist, magazine editor and compiler of Assembling magazines. We first wrote to
Vigo in 1979
and he responded with artist envelopes and a letter but there was little
contact thereafter and we never had the opportunity to meet. Nevertheless, we
hold a large body of his work either purchased from booksellers or from an
organization called Le Coin Du Chen in Montpellier,
France that was
in charge of selling works from his estate. In terms of mail and stamp art, Vigo edited several out
of print, important periodicals and catalogues by contributors world-wide that
document this field. These include the exhibition catalogues entitledPrimera Exposicion du Novisimo Poesia de
Vanguardia (1968) atGalerie
Scheinsohn in La Plata and ‘Last International
Exhibition of Mail Art '75’ (1975) atArte Neuve Galeria de Arte in Buenos
Aires. We hold complete runs of periodicals that
featured mail and stamp art such as 28 issues of ‘Diagonal Cero’ (1963-1968), 16
issues of ‘Hexa'gono '71’ (1971-1975),
3 issues of Libro Internacional /
international book (1976-1980) and 24 issues of Our International Stamps/Cancelled Seals
(1979-1990). Of interest is that Vigo and Baroni
collaborated on a photocopied stamp sheet that is in our collection.

Performance Poetry

Bob Cobbing (British) and Michael Basinski (American).Performance
poetry is poetry that is
specifically composed for or during a performance before an audience. During
the 1980s, the term\ came into popular usage to describe poetry
written or composed for performance rather than print distribution. However,
scores for these poems often have concrete or visual poetic appearances

Bob Cobbing (1920-2002) was a sound, visual, concrete and performance
poet and publisher who was a central figure in the British Poetry Revival. The
latter was the general name given to a loose poetry movementin the U.K. that took place in the 1960s
and 1970s. The revival was a modernist-inspired reaction to the more
conservative approach to British poetry. We first met Bob in London
in 1979 and visited him almost every summer when we were in London until two years before he died.
He was a major source to us for obtaining rare concrete and visual poetic
books, periodicals, manuscripts, typewritten pieces, prints and catalogues as
well as his own Writers Forum publications. The latter numbers over 1000
pamphlets and books, and, we hold most of them. As a performance artist, he was
one-of-a-kind! We brought him and P.C. Fencott for an exhibition and
performance at the Richter Library, University of Miami in 1982 and they
wowed the crowd and ourselves who had never heard anything like it.

Robert Sheppard (1955), a British poet who wrote Cobbing’s obituary in The
Guardian, Sunday 6 October 2002 best described the person and his ties to
concrete and performance poetry as quoted below in an abbreviated form.

“He [Cobbing] began
his life-long engagement with arts organising in the mid-1950s, with Group H
and And magazine in Hendon, which grew into Writers
Forum. After leaving teaching in the early 1960s, he managed the famous
underground shop Better Books in London's
Charing Cross
Road,
venue of many readings and happenings of the "bomb culture", as his
colleague and early Writers Forum poet Jeff Nuttall called those heady days.

Cobbing's entry
into the world of concrete poetry came in 1964, with the writing of his
alphabetical sequence ABC In Sound. Although he
claimed the texts derived from auditory hallucinations during a bout of 'flu,
its use of puns, foreign languages, palindromes and technical jargon suggests
elaborate craftsmanship. The text beginning: "Tan tandinanan
tandinane/Tanan tandina tandinane" already suggests a chanting
performance, which it received when Cobbing was given access to the BBC
Radiophonic Workshop with its battery of special effects.

Owning the means
of production (the office duplicator, the photocopier) meant that Cobbing could
conflate the processes of writing, design and printing. Performing regularly
meant that he could heal the split in concrete poetry between those who
presented silent icons, most famously Ian Hamilton Finlay, and those who
developed the art of pure sound, such as Henri Chopin. Cobbing's anagrammatic
title Sonic Icons was emblematic. As his texts became progressively freer, any
mark - whether letter-shape, lip imprint, or inkblot - was readable as a sign
on the page. Shape and texture suggested vocalisation and sound to Cobbing and
the performers he increasingly worked with during the 1970s, such as musicians
Paul Burwell and David Toop, and poets Paula Claire and Bill Griffiths.

Moaning, sighing,
shouting, even sneezing, became as common as words or phonetics. In recent
years, new collaborators became crucial to his work: the anarchic thrash noise
ensemble of Bird Yak (Hugh Metcalfe on guitar and amplified gas mask, veteran
improviser Lol Coxhill on saxophone, and his wife Jennifer, dancing); or the
extraordinary series of 300 booklets written with Lawrence Upton, Domestic
Ambient Noise, across which the two writers processed and re-arranged the
other's work. Aesthetically uncompromising, and
repellent to some, Cobbing's language experiments could also be fun - as his
work with schoolchildren testified. He remained alert to the weird linguistic
detritus he found everywhere. A late text plays changes upon Liz Lockhead's
contention that "A good fuck makes me feel like custard". Who could
resist Cobbing's rejoinders that "a good screw makes me feel like wet
blancmange" or ‘a little lechery makes me feel like spotted dick’?”

Michael
Basinski (1950-) is one of the most entertaining
performance poets that we have heard. He is a text, visual and sound poet and curator of The Poetry/Rare Books
Collection of the University Libraries, State University ofYork at Buffalo. Mike performs as a solo poet and
with the performance/sound ensemble, Bufffluxus. His visual scores are much
more artistic and directed than Cobbing’s scores but like Cobbing, they are all
improvised. We contacted him by mail in 1998 and have maintained a
correspondence since then and plan to meet when we visit Buffalo in 2011 for a Concrete and Visual
Poetry exhibition. We first heard him perform in 2004 at ‘An American Avant
Garde: Second Wave - A Symposium, held in OhioStateUniversity. Michael
gave a fantastic, funny performance and we purchased the score for it on the
spot. We hold 11 of his books or booklets, 2 pamphlets, and 11 unique
performance scores of this still rising star of performance poetry

Exhibitions

The following
exhibitions utilized solely or mostly works from our collection. We have not
included individual works that were lent to various museums such as Los Angeles
County Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art New York, Palais de Tokyo Paris,
Reina Sofia Madrid, Tarble Art Gallery Cincinnati, Ohio etc.

1983 Ruth and Marvin
Sackner Archive, University of South Florida
Library, Tampa, FL.

1983 The
Russian Avant Garde: from the collection of Ruth & Marvin Sackner. American
abstract artists: from the collection of Patricia and Phillip Frost, Lowe Art
Museum, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL

Representative
Sample of Artists and Poets Collected by the Sackner Archive.

Country

Artist/Poet
Name

United States

JohannaDrucker

SandraJackman

JackHirschman

Richard
Minsky

d.a. levy

WilliamJaySmith

JakeBerry

EmmettWilliams

JonathanWilliams

DavidCole

RichardKostelanetz

Sloy

Joan Iversen
Goswell

John-EricBroaddus

F.A.
Nettelbeck

TimothyEly

JohnM.Bennett

KennethGoldsmith

ScottHelmes

DickHiggins

KarlKempton

RuthLaxson

PaulLaffoley

RaymondFederman

GeofHuth

IrvingWeiss

SusanBarron

WalterHamady

JacksonMac
Low

JimLeftwich

JodyZellen

MaryEllenSolt

GinaGenis

Liz
Was

Miekal And

CarlAndre

KathyErnst

MartinWilner

KentTaylor

ClaireSatin

ErnestRobson

AramSaroyan

EdwinTorres

BernPorter

NicoVasselakis

RichardC.

KennethPatchen

AminahRobinson

NormanPritchard

AndrewTopel

MarilynR.Rosenberg

MichaelJosephPhillips

Edward
Sanders

TomOckerse

RonaldJohnson

HannahWeiner

D.r.Wagner

JeromeRothenberg

ArneWolf

AnnaWolf

KarlYoung

JohnViera

DouglasBlazek

CharlesBernstein

PaulaScher

DanWaber

Crag Hill

Bill (Picasso) Gaglione

BobGrumman

CarolStetser

GuyBeining

JohnGiorno

RobertRocola

MichaelBasinski

JohnByrum

JohnCage

MichaelWinkler

DavidDetHompson

WallyDepew

PhilipGallo

BarbaraKruger

JennyHolzer

BillKeith

Robert
Lax

TomL.Kryss

MichaelMcClure

DavidMoss

GeoffreyCook

MarkDanielewski

RayDi
Palma

HendrikDrescher

DavidDaniels

JacobDrachler

JohnnyBrewton

CharlesBukowski

JimClinefelter

KayRosen

DonMilliken

Ginny Lloyd

HarryPolkinhorn

JudithHoffberg

MichaelB.Corbett

KenFriedman

CarolBerge

GeorgeBrecht

JohnPyros

RichardMeade

PeterM.Cragie

BobHeman

JohnHeldJr.

MikeMiskowski

DanRaphael

RobertGrenier

ThomasMerton

WallaceBerman

ChrisWinkler

SpenserSelby

MarkSonnenfeld

Malok

StevenHeller

IngridSwanberg

DerekWhite

Clifton Meador

Buzz Spector

AustinStraus

BillDiMichele

WernerPfeiffer

RobertSaunders

Canada

bp Nichol

SteveMcCaffery

jw curry

DavidUU
[Harris]

GregEvason

ShauntBasmajian

JudithCopithorne

damian
lopes

AnnaBanana

bill bissett

DerekBeaulieu

Daniel
f. Bradley

Jean-ClaudeGagnon

ChristianBok

Jars Balan

BarbaraCaruso

EarleBirney

PaulDutton

MarshallMcLuhan

CarlyleBaker

JohnRiddell

GustaveMorin

BrionGysin

DonatoMancini

StuartRoss

LeRoyGorman

MarkLaba

GerryGilbert

WhartonHood

ross
priddle

GerryShikatani

DavidAylward

KarlJirgens

R.Murray
Schafer

PeterDay

NelsonBall

DarrenWerschler-Henry

PierreAndreArcand

DouglasBarbour

JohnRobertColombo

British
Isles

TomPhillips

IanHamiltonFinlay

JohnFurnival

BobCobbing

JeremyAdler

Dom
SylvesterHouedard

PaulaClaire

Cozettede
Charmoy

RobinCrozier

AlastairGray

B.S.Johnson

SimonCutts

SimonLewty

JohnCrombie

KarlTorok

PatriciaCollins

DavidDellafiora

AnnNoel

ChristineBrooke-Rose

CharlesVerey

Cris Cheek

DonatoCinicolo
3

ThomasA.Clark

MikeGibbs

Kenelm Cox

TomEdmonds

P.C.Fencott

PeterFinch

BillGriffiths

PeterMayer

AndrewBelsey

NeilMills

EdwardMorgan

StephanMorris

Opal Nations

JeffNuttall

BettyRadin

StefanThemerson

JoeTilson

LawrenceUpton

EdwardWright

NicholasZurbrugg

MichaelLeigh

IanBreakwell

StephanWillats

GilbertAdair

JakeTilson

PeterLiversidge

CavanMcCarthy

StuartMills

AllenFischer

GavinBantock

PhilipJenkins

Cuba

SeveroSarduy

CarlosMacia

CarlosLuis

SamuelFeijoo

Mexico

Ulises Carrion

Jose-AntonioBurciaga

MathiasGoeritz

Argentina

Edgardo-Antonio Vigo

LeandroKatz

LeonFerrari

GracielaGutierrez-Marx

FernandoGarciaDelgado

ArmandoDurante

FabioDoctorovich

Brazil

PedroXisto

DeciaPignatari

AugustoDe
Campos

HaraldoDe
Campos

AvelinoDe
Araujo

Regina Vater

PaoloBruscky

LeonhardFrankDuch

Edgard Braga

PhiladelphoMenezes

WlademirDiasPino

MoacyCirne

MiraSchendel

JoaquimBranco

Chile

GuillermoDeisler

EugenioDittborn

Martin Gubbins

Uruguay

ClementePadin

AmandaBerenguer

Venezuela

DamasoOgaz

Colombia

AntonioSuarezLondono

JonierMarin

Puerto
Rico

PedroPietri

AntonioMartorell

FranciscoRosado

ElSalvador

Romeo
Galdamez

Spain

Zush

GrupoTextoPoetica

JoanRabascall

FernandoMillan

FranciscoMoleroPrior

JuanHidalgo

Ignazio
Gomez De Liano

BartolomeFerrando

CarlosPazos

J.M.Calleja

JoseLuisCastillejo

JoaquimChancho

JoanBrossa

JoanPalou

FranciscoPino

Portugal

CesarFigeiredo

AnaHatherly

FernandoAguiar

AlbertoPimenta

AntonioAragao

E.M.de
Melo
e Castro

France

JoelHubaut

AlbertDupont

HenriChopin

MauriceLemaitre

BernardQuentin

AlainSatie

RolandSabatier

RachidKoraichi

FrankLalou

GenevieveSeille

JacquesSpacagna

FrederiqueDevaux

DidierMutel

GeorgesPerec

Jean-Francois
Bory

Ben

GilWolman

BernardHeidsieck

LlysDana

JoelleDautricourt

PierreGarnier

JulienBlaine

Jean-PierreNadau

PierreAlbert-Birot

MichelAmarger

Paul-ArmandGette

Jean-BernardArkitu

Anik Vinay

Emile-BernardSouchere

DeniseAubertin

JeanCortot

Alain Bar

RolandTopor

ClaudePelieu

LaurentBerman

AnneQuesemand

SuzanneBernard

Gerard-PhilippeBroutin

ChristianBurgaud

MichelButor

BertrandDorny

ClaudeCahun

FrancoiseCanal

PatrickChelli

MichelCorfou

Jean-PaulCurtay

GuyDe
Cointet

JoelDucorroy

JacquesMaret

RobertFilliou

JacquesVillegle

IsidoreIsou

MichelJaffrennou

GabrielPomerand

FrancoiseMairey

Massin

ClaudeMelin

GabrielParis

JeromePeignot

RaymondQueneau

PierreDi
Sciullo

MauriceRoche

Alain De la Tour

Belgium

PaulDe
Vree

GuyBleus

Ivo Vroom

GuySchraenen

LucFierens

ChristianDotremont

MarcelBroodthaers

Alain Arias-Misson

The Netherlands

HansClavin

HermanDe
Vries

G.J.De
Rook

HermanDamen

WillemSandberg

Arno Arts

RobertJoseph

Italy

VittoreBaroni

LucianoCaruso

EnzoMiglietta

EugenioMiccini

UgoCarrega

MaurizioNannucci

MichelePerfetti

MirellaBentivoglio

AngeloMerante

MarcelloDiotallevi

ArrigoLora-Totino

AdrianoSpatola

LucianoOri

Luigi Tola

VincenzoAccame

Gabriele-Aldo Bertozzi

GiancarloPavanello

AlessandroAlgardi

IgnazioApolloni

LucianaArbizzani

NanniBalestrini

GianfrancoBaruchello

CarlaBertola

TomasoBinga

IrmaBlank

StelioMariaMartini

MarioDiacono

EmilioVilla

GianniBertini

CorradoD'Ottavi

BettyDanon

LambertoPignotti

EmilioIsgro

LuciaMarcucci

EugenioCarmi

Gianni-Emilio Simonetti

MagdaloMussio

ClaudioParmiggiani

Sarenco

FrancoVerdi

VittorioFava

FernandaFedi

LuigiFerro

Giovanni Fontana

ClaudioFrancia

Luca Patella

WilliamXerra

GinoGini

SilvioGuardi

AnnaGuillot

Elisabetta Gut

GianniSimone

Ketty La Rocca

AnnaOberto

EnzoPatti

MimmoRotela

RobertoSanesi

RudolfoVitone

Marco Giovenale

Germany

ElisabethBroel

GernotCepl

KlausPeterDencker

BarbaraFahrner

JochimGerz

KlausZylla

Horst Haack

ThomasGunther

UweWarnke

JurgenOlbrich

FerdinandKriwet

HelmutLohr

AlbrechtGenin

Franz
Mon

RobertRehfeldt

RuthWolf-Rehfeldt

TimmUlrichs

HansjorgMayer

KlausBurkhardt

RaoulHausmann

MaxBense

JanHerman

ClausBohmler

Badura,
Michael

JosephBeuys

UweBremer

AliSchindehutte

JohannesVennekamp

ArnoWaldschmidt

IlseBing

ImtraudKlug

UtaSchneider

UlrikeStoltz

TheoBreuer

KlausBurkhardt

WilFrenken

KlausGroh

SigfridCremer

HanneDarboven,

WolfVostell

Rolf-GunterDienst

KlausPeterDienst

ReinhardDohl

HarmutSorgel

ErhildEbel

WernerEnke

Siegfried J.Schmidt

Winfred Gaul

LudwigGosewitz

KlausGroh

WolfgangHainke

LudwigHarig

PaulHeimbach

HelmutHeissenbuttel

KaiHoesselbarth

InesKetelhodt

JanaKluge

AxelGeorgeMalik

CorneliaAhnert

HenningMittendorf

ClaudiaPutz

KatharinaEckart

RichardMuller

ReinholdNasshan

MathiasPohlmann

KarlRiha

Dieter Roth

Konrad Balder Schauffelen

ArnoSchmidt

Dietrich
Schneider-Henn

AchimSchnyder

Dieter EmilSdun

UlrichTarlatt

Dieter Wagner

OttfriedZielke

HarmutAndryczuk

MaryBauermeister

CarlfriedrichClaus

Austria

ErnstJandl

PeterDaniel

GerhardRuhm

BertySkuber

Klaus Basset

FriedichAchleitner

Konrad Bayer

FrederikeMayrocker

HeinzGappmayr

OskarPastior

GeorgJappe

GerhardJaschke

Franzobel

AndreasHapkemeyer

WernerHerbst

GretaSchodl

HansStaudacher

PeterWeiermair

WolfWezel

FritzWidhalm

OswaldWiener

HansjorgZauner

Czechoslovakia

JosefHirsal

JiriValoch

BohumilaGrogerova

KarelAdamus

VladimirBurda

LadislavNovak

JiriKolar

J.H.Kocman

KarelTrinkewitz

StanoFilko

LadislavNebesky

VaclavHavel

AdolfHoffmeister

Jiri Hula

MiroslavKlivar

Milan Knizak

EduardOvcacek

PetrSevcik

Hungary

Jozsef Biro

OrshiDrozdik

GaborToth

GyorgyGalantai

JanosGeczi

LaszloHegedus
2

EndreSzkarosi

Fabian Istavan

LaszloLakner

EmokeLipcsey

AndrasPetocz

PaulNagy

GezaPerneczky

BalintSzombathy

Endre Tot

TiborPapp

RobertZend

Switzerland

EugenGomringer

ClausBremer

WernerHartmann

Dieter Roth

GuntherRuch

ArthurAeschbacher

IanAnull

JohnArmleder

FrancoBeltrametti

HansRudolphBosshard

ClausBremer

AntonBruhin

ErnstBuchwalder

GerardCharriere

Peer Clahsen

AndreasHapkemeyer

H.R.Fricker

NorbertKlassen

KurtMarti

Andreas
Senser

DanielSpoerri

AdolfWolfli

ManfredStirnemann

Yugoslavia

NenadBogdanovic

DobricaKamperelic

RoraKamperelic

MiroljubTodorovic

KatalinLadik

MladinStilinovic

AndrejTisma

FranciZagoricnik

Russia

Africa

AlexOcheretyansky

DmitryBabenko

VagrichBakhchanyan

VilenBarsky

SergeiBiriukov

MikhailBogatyrev

AriadnaBondareva

GrishaBruskin

AlexandrBubnov

DmitryBulatov

Tolsty

OlegDergatchov

ReaNikonova

ValerieScherstjanoi

AlexanderFedulov

ValeriyGerlovin

RimmaGerlovina

JefGolyscheff

Iliazd

AlexanderKohav

BorisKonstriktor

AndreyTozik

WilliMelnikov-Starquist

BorisNieslony

Lev Nussberg

Serge Segay

DmitriPrigov

AndreiRepeshko

ValereiScherstjanoi

OlgaPlatanova

LeonidTishkov

Ukraine

TatianaNazarenko

MyroslavKozol

RafaelLevchin

MykolaMiroshnychenko

MykolaSoroka

VasylTrubaj

Denmark

BoKristiansen

EricAnderson

RuudJanssen

HansJorganNielsen

ArthurKopcke

Henrik Have

Mogens Otto Nielsen

WilliamLouisSorensen

VagnSteen

Sweden

ÖyvindFahlstrom

Mats Bengtsson

Lars-Gunnar
Bodin

HmarLaaban

StenHanson

AkeHodell

BengtEmilJohnson

BoCavefors

CarlFredrikReutsward

Elis Eriksson

Agneta Fslk

JorgenNash

Bengt
af Klintberg

JariHammarberg-Akesson

Hardy Strid

Finland

J.Lehmus

AnselmHollo

Jukka-Pekka Kervinen

EinoRuutsalo

HetaNorros

Norway

MonicaRasprong

LarsMichelRaattamaa

Iceland

Erro

HreinnFridfinnsson

JonLaxdal

Poland

JoannaAdamczewska

PawelPetasz

KatarzynaBazarnik

ZenonFajfer

StefanWewerka

HenrykBzdok

JohannaCzerwinska

AndrzejDluzniewski

StansilawDrozdz

AndrzejDudek-Durer

JaroslawKozlowski,

Natalia LL

GustaveMetzger

TadeuszMyslowski

PiotrRypson

AndrzejKwietniewski

StefanThemerson

AlicjaWerbachowska

Romania

AndreaDezso

ValeryOisteanu

DanielSpoerri

GertTobias

UweTobias

Greece

DemosthenesAgrafiotis

CritonTomazos

StathisChrissicopoulos

ConstantinXenakis

Armenia

SoniaBalassanian

Israel

DavidAvidan

MenachemBoas

MosheCastel

MosheDadoun

JacobEl
Hanani

MosheKupferman

GaryGoldstein

Maty Grunberg

LeilaAvrin

Hilla Lulu Lin

IzharPatkin

FredPauker

Australia

pete
spence

TimGaze

AnthonyFigallo

JavantBiarujla

AnnaBlume

Richard
Tipping

Cerebral Shorts

RaimondoCortese

Ruth
Cowen

MimmoCozzolino

Cornelis vleeskens

JasH.Duke

PeterLyssiotis

AnthonyFigallo

DianneFogwell

JenniferHawkins

MikeHudson

JadwigaJarvis

ChrisMann

PeterMurphy

F'nL
Osowski

Pie (TT) O

DavidPowell

StephenBanham

AlanRiddell

TomRoberts

AlexSelenitsch

NormaPearse

Thlaia

GrahamWilloughby

AdamWolter

New Zealand

AndrewBlythe

Philippines

ElisaTan

DavidMedalla

South Africa

WillemBoshoff

RobinFarquharson

Garth Walker

Tunis

NjaMahdaoui

Algeria

RachidKoriachi

Iraq

HassanMassoudy

Iran

ShirinNeshat

AssurbanipalBabilla

MassoudArabshahi

Lebanon

WalidRaad

Ivory Coast

Frederic
Bruly Bouabre

Luxembourg

JeanDelvaux

Liechtenstein

RobertoAltmann

India

Arvind Krishna Mehotra

Dev

KalanathJha

Japan

KayokoAbe

Arakawa

Ay O

KeiichiNakamura

TakahashiShohachiro

RyosukeCohen

SeiichiNiikini

MiekoShiomi

YokoOno

YuHirai

LeicoIkemura

KitasonoKatue

YasuoFujitomi

HiroKamimura

TakakoHasekura

MotoyukiIto

HiroeKittaka

Shoji Yoshizawa

TakehisaKosugi

ShigekoKubota

Matsutani

KazunoriMurakami

Ochiishi

ShinroOhtake

ShimuzuToshihiko

ToshiKatayama

ItsukoHasegawa

Shin Tanabe

Shimizu Toshihiko

Shoji Yoshizawa

China

ChristopherHarmonCheung

XuBing

Tsang Kin-wah

CheQianzi

Korea

NamJunePaik

Kum-Nam Baik

Koh Won

KooJeong

.

The first catalogue of the Archive
was compiled with a word-processing typewriter that placed stringent
limitations on revision. It was privately published in 1986 in a run of 500
copies and is long out of print. The citations of the Archive holdings were
entered into a computer database in 1990. The bibliography at this site was
modified from the current database developed for the Sackner Archive by DaveEdwards,
President of Re:discovery software. In its first WEB presentation in February 1998, it comprised about 29,000 citations which
were almost half the items then in the Archive. The first revision in January
1999 consisted of about 32,000 records, the second revision in November 2000
about 35,500 records, the third revision, about 39,000 records, the fourth
revision, about 41,000 records, the fifth revision of September 2004, about 43,000
records, the sixth revision of June 2005 about 44,000 records, the seventh
revision of June 2006 over 45,500 records, in the eighth revision of August
2009 over 50,000 records and in this ninth revision of October 2011 over 53,000
records. About 23,000 items are partially catalogued or uncatalogued and will
be added to this WEB presentation on an irregular basis. In this ninth revision,
there are almost 10,500 images. Because of limitations imposed by the Internet
in transfer of the Re:discovery program, some of its search features that run
on the personal computer in the Sackner Archive could not be included in this
WEB version.

Search Collection

This function at the top of the page labeled Search
Collection or the icon with the magnifying glass moving to and fro offers
simple search capability. If either is clicked, then a Keywords search box
comes up. The keywords in this search will bring
up records in any field that these keywords appear. For example, if Finlay and
Manuscript are entered into the search box, then 19
records are brought up, nine in
which Finlay is the author and ten in which he was a contributor. To retrieve
only the records where Finlay was the author, it is
necessary to click on advanced search. This brings
up a menu that lists the following entry boxes, Author/Maker, Title,
Contributors, Classification, Keywords, Cross Field
Search Options. If Finlay is entered into Author/Maker box and Manuscript into
Keywords and Cross Field Search Options set to Match
any fields, then 1474 records will be retrieved. This is because any field that
has either Finlay or Manuscript will be selected.
However, if Match all fields is selected for the Cross Field Search Options,
then only nine records are retrieved in which Finlay is the author and
manuscript appears in any field.

Entry Fields

Clicking on the icon with the
moving magnifying glass brings up a
Keywords entry box. Clicking on Advanced Search brings
up the fields listed below. Specific fields in which a query may be entered
include Author/Maker, Title, Contributors (direct or cited [(c)],
Classification and Keywords. Queries regarding data in other fields can be
entered into the Keywords box but specificity of the search is limited in this
Internet version of the database. For example, suppose the reader desires a
listing of all exhibition catalogues with the title, “visual poetry.” If this
query is entered into the Keywords box, then
all exhibition catalogues, books, announcements, classification, annotation,
etc. that include this search phrase will be listed including fields that
include Visual Art and Conventional Poetry not the desired Visual Poetry. Such
a search phrase is an inefficient means of finding the desired items.

Duplicates can be found by
entering a query into a specific field, setting Cross Field Search Option field
to the ‘and’ option (match all fields). For example, to find duplicate works by
TomPhillips, enter the words, Tom and Phillips, into the
Author/Maker field and the word, duplicates, into Keywords.

Other options for Keywords aside
from specific queries that the reader wants include the following fields. To
access these fields, type the following letters/numbers followed by an equal
sign. If more than one word is typed, then connect the words with ‘and.’ Q is
the letter to retrieve periodicals (note that these letters are case sensitive
but the word being searched is not). For example, to find all issues of the
periodical “Wipe,’ in the keyword field, type Q=wipe and all issues will be
retrieved. In addition, Sh’wipe and S’wipe
periodicals will also be listed. To list only wipe, type Q=wipe not (Q=sh or
Q=s). To retrieve the periodical, Shattered Wig, type Q=shattered and Q=wig; if
Q=shattered wig is typed, then a search will be performed with the words,
shattered and wig, from other fields in the record causing erroneous records to
be retrieved.

Letters/numbers listed below are case
sensitive.

Author/Artist: type I=

Publisher: type E=

Title: type E=

City, Country (Publication):
type U=

Translator: type b=

Year (Publication): type Y=

Exhibition Announcement: type
N=

Media: type L=

Catalogue: type D=

Container: type p=

Exhibition Catalogue: type V=

Nationality: type 5=

Periodical: type Q=

Language: type G=

Subtitle Author (Periodical):
type R=

Classification: type C=

Subtitle (Periodical): type T=

Annotation: type H=

Announcement: type S=

Other contributors type t=

Total number of copies: type n=

Issue number type u=

Volume number type 3=

Browse Order and Reference Tables

The Browse Collection option
offers the following selections, Heading, Catalogue Number, and Images.
Selection of “Heading” causes listing of the following entries from the
database that are commingled in alphabetical order: 1) Author/Maker,
e.g. Phillips, Tom, 2) Exhibition Announcement, e.g., Books as Art, 3) Announcement,
e.g., 3 Talks on Typography and Books, 4) Catalogue, e.g., 2nd
Artist Book International, 5) Exhibition Catalogue, e.g., Meaning as a
Second Language, and 6) Periodical, e.g., Blast. In this example, these
citations would appear in alphabetical order in this selection with these
headings: 1. Artist Book International, 2nd, 2. Blast, 3. Books as Art, 4. Meaning as a Second
Language, 5. Phillips, Tom,
6. Talks on Typography and Books. Thumbnail images are also available along
with their citations in alphabetical order. Selection of “Images” provides a
view of single and multiple images from a citation listed in Heading
alphabetical order. Clicking on the thumbnail image causes its enlargement.

The Browse Authorities option
allows the reader access to the contents of selected fields that are listed in
tabular form, viz., 1. Classification, 2.Periodical, 3.Publisher, 4.Contributors, 5.Author, 6.Subtitle
Author, 7.Nationality, 8.Language,
and 9.City, Country (of publication). Clicking on one of these Browse
Authorities options provides listing of all the entries in the selected field.
For example, the Author Authority Table lists the names of all authors in the
database. Because of variation in translating names from some foreign languages
to English, this table should is useful for the spelling of the author’s name
in this database, needed to conduct a proper search. The Authority Tables also
provide the reader with information regarding the contents of the database with
regard to Publishers, Periodicals, etc.

Search Procedure

Although the re:discovery search
program running on the personal computer offers searches on each discrete field
and combinations of fields with logic expressions, the Internet version of this
program offers limited selections: 1) Author/Maker (ordered as last name, first
name, middle name or initial), 2) Title, 3) Contributors, 4) Classification,
and 5) Any Field. Capitalization of Search words is unnecessary. The
Contributors field lists the contributor as last name followed by first name
initial; if (c) follows the first name initial, it indicates that the
contributor is cited rather than directly responsible for the specific
publication or artwork. The Cross Field Search key in the Search menu sets the
search for the preceding fields to an ‘or’ function (Match Any Fields) or an
‘and’ function (Match All Fields). Multiple entries of words into a field are
assumed to be an ‘and’ function. Within a field, logic functions can also be
used. The program does not recognize punctuation marks for a field except for
the parentheses separating logic expressions during a Search. Representative
examples for Search Procedures follow below.

If the reader wanted to know all
entries for TomPhillips as a contributor,
Phillips T, would be entered into the Contributors
Field. If he/she wanted only citations in which Phillipswere cited, the entry in the Contributors Field would
read, Phillips T c, [no parentheses needed for cited (c)]. If only direct
contributions to publications by Phillips were
wanted, then the Contributors Field would read, (phillips t) NOT (phillips
t c); here, the parentheses are needed to separate the logic expression, NOT
(or not).

If the reader wanted citations
for Adler as an author or Cobbing as a contributor, he/she would enter Adler
into the Author Field and Cobbing into the Contributor Field and set the Cross
Field Search key to Match Any Fields (‘or’ state), which is also the default
state of this key.If only citations
were wanted with Adler as an author in which Cobbing
appeared as contributor, then the Author Field would read Adler,
the Contributor Field Cobbing, and the Cross Field Search key, Match All Fields
(‘and’ state).

Combination of words for limiting
the Search to specific citations must be ordered as they appear in the
database. For example, if the reader wanted all works by TomPhillips, then the Author Field should read PhillipsTom.
If TomPhillips is entered into the Author Field,
then the Search fails to return a citation because it looks for the last name, Tom. However, if the reader enters Tom and Phillips, then and
the Search procedure is the same as entering, PhillipsTom.
A Search for Phillips alone in the Author Field gives
more citations because other authors with last name Phillips
and first name different from Tom are
retrieved.

The utilization of an asterisk
(*) immediately prior to or after a word is a wild card feature. Thus, if *web
is entered into Title field, then citations are returned that might include the
following in the title, "web" and "webern."
If *web is entered into Any Field, then a much larger number of citations are
returned.

All items in The Sackner Archive
of Concrete and Visual Poetry made in 1938 and thereafter are owned by The Marvin
and Ruth Sackner Limited Partnership, LLC and all items in 1937 and preceding
this date are owned by Ruth and MarvinSackner.
This website presents information on all the works together to assist the
interested public in appreciating and learning about this kind of art, poetry,
and the people that make these pieces.